The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press.
Times of Malta says a firm is offering work to foreign nurses in Malta despite a warning against it.
In-Nazzjon reports an appeal by Simon Busuttil to vote PN so that it can make a difference in people's lives.
l-orizzont reports that the interconnector will be inaugurated on Thursday jointly by Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi and Prime Minister Joseph Muscat.
The Malta Independent says John Dalli had felt uncomfortable in maintaining the snus ban.
The overseas press
The New York Times reports the UN Security Council has called for humanitarian aid access to the 18,000 refugees – including a large number of children – caught in Syria’s Yarmouk camp amid clashes between Palestinian armed factions and the ISIS terror group.
The East African reports Kenyan warplanes bombed militant camps in Somalia, following a promise by President Uhuru Kenyatta to respond “in the fiercest way possible” to a massacre of college students by al-Shabab extremists.
Lufthansa has indicated that it was under no obligation to report to Germany’s national aviation authority the fact that Germanwings co-pilot Andreas Lubitz suffered from depression several years ago. Welt am Sonntag quotes Lufthansa saying Lubitz informed its flight school, when he returned from a several-month break in pilot training in 2009, that he had experienced an episode of “severe depression”. It said he subsequently passed all medical tests.
The Boston Herald says that as Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s trial nears its end, prosecutors have argued he is a callous terrorist who carried out the 2013 attack to wage holy war and punish America. Assistant US attorney Aloke Chakravarty said Tsarnaev and his brother “felt they were soldiers” or “mujahideen” bringing their battle to Boston. Three people were killed and 264 others were wounded in the twin blasts at the finish line of the Boston Marathon in April 2013.
Grandma reports Cuba’s Trade Minister Rodrigo Malmierca has criticized President Obama’s limited steps to ease the crippling trade and financial embargo the United States has maintained on Cuba since 1962 as “incomplete and insufficient”.
The British government has warned as many as 80,000 UK citizens could be killed and 200,000 more infected should there be an outbreak of drug-resistant bacteria. A report picked up by The Guardian, again sounded the alarm on the need to develop new antibiotics to avert the possibility of even routine surgical procedures becoming high-risk. The risk of new infections from drug-resistant bugs is expected to “increase markedly” in the next 20 years.
Ansa reports the remake of the classic 1959 Hollywood epic “Ben Hur” is drawing new crowds of visitors to the southern Italian city of Matera, as the famous ancient cave dwellings known as Sassi, caught the attention of filmmakers. Over the Easter break, waves of tourists went to see the city, some also hoping to catch a glimpse of a few of the film’s stars including Morgan Freeman and Jack Huston.
Fox News says a fraternity at the University of Virginia has announced it would “pursue all available legal action” against Rolling Stone magazine for defamation by publishing an article that falsely accused them of gang rape. It said the Rolling Stone article, viewed by millions, “fuelled a court of public opinion that ostracized Phi Kappa Psi members and led to vandalism of the fraternity house”.
A US florist, fined €911 for refusing to sell a same-sex couple wedding flowershas netted almost €86,511 in a crowd-funding campaign. The Seattle Times reports that nearly half of the money on the gofundme.com page set up in late February for Barronelle Stutzman, 70, came in the last several days. Donations of various sizes have been left on the page, with supporters offering support with comments such as “God bless you for standing for Truth”.
NBC says Gertrude Weaver, who just last week became the world’s oldest-known living person, has died at the age of 116 at a senior care facility in Arkansas. The world’s oldest known person is now Jeralean Talley of Inskter, Michigan, who was born on May 23, 1899 and will turn 116 next month.
Danielle Josey Davis had been married only seven months when a devastating motorcycle accident left her husband on life support and in a coma. Doctors recommended letting Matt Davis die because there was a 90 percent chance he would never wake up, but Danielle told ABC News she decided it just wasn’t time yet. Then, one day, he woke up. “I’m sure glad I married her,” Matt Davis told ABC News yesterday, though he doesn’t remember Danielle from before the 2010 crash that caused his traumatic brain injury.